Smart Money Asia

Tax – Who Has Access To Your Financial Information?

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By now I’m sure one of the banks or other financial institutions you use have asked you for confirmation of where you are tax resident, and for your tax ID number. In fact, you may have been asked for this information multiple times. So what is it all about and who knows what you have got, so to speak?

You may want to read up on the Common Reporting Standard (CRS). Developed by the OECD in 2014 to combat tax evasion, CRS involves the automatic exchange of tax and financial information globally. 83 countries have already signed up for the agreement and first reporting begins this month, September 2017.

What this means, in practical terms, is that every financial institution in these jurisdictions is required to collect information on their customers country or countries of tax residence, including their Tax ID number(s). Hence the requests you have probably already received from some or all of the institutions you have accounts with. This information will be provided to the local tax authority in the institution’s jurisdiction, who will then share the information with the country you are tax resident in.

The information exchanged will include:

Name, address, DOB and Tax Identification number of reportable person
Account number
Name and ID number of financial institution
Account balance of value at end of calendar year

So, for example, if you are from the UK and currently live and work in Japan, your country of tax residence will most likely be Japan. If you have a bank account in the UK, then the details and balance of that account will be shared with the Japan tax office. The same applies to accounts in any other participating countries. In case you are wondering, your tax ID number in Japan is the recently introduced My Number.

CRS was initially based on the USA Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and therefore it’s interesting to note that the US, which is already receiving information about foreign accounts held by its citizens through FATCA, has not signed the CRS treaty.

So what does this mean for you? Well mostly it means more and more disclosure related to international financial transactions. You are already required to provide certified ID and proof of residential address in order to open accounts and move money, and now you will also need to provide your tax ID. If you have transferred money overseas recently, you may have noticed that the amount of information you have to provide is increasing, especially for larger amounts. What it also means is that, in order to catch people who are hiding money and evading taxes, people who are doing nothing wrong are steadily losing the ability to keep their financial data private. Like it or not, that is the world we are living in so plan accordingly.

Here is a useful list of participating countries, and to what degree they are implementing CRS.

Property Investing Part 4 – Income for Life

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Welcome to Part 4 of our series on property investing with Graeme, focussing on the “income for life” part of the property investor’s mantra:

This is the second half of an article explaining how serious property investors make money from property without using their own money, and how you can too.

You’ll remember from the previous post that our aim is to buy a property below market value (BMV), refurbish the property to a good standard, pull our money out using a mortgage, end up with equity in the property and each month benefit from rental income……and then repeat the process thus building a successful portfolio that generates passive income. With this strategy it’s crucial to buy BMV. The money in, money out mantra works if you buy at the right price and then add value with refurbishments.

In the previous article we learned how to pull money out of a property so in this article we will move on to the final part of the mantra – how to generate income for life. What we mean by income for life is making sure each property will give us monthly rental income. This is also known as positive cashflow.

Cashflow is the single most important word for most investors.

Cashflow is the life blood of a property investment. If there is one word to remember from today’s post it is cashflow

Focus on cashflow

Cashflow is either a positive number or a negative number. Investors aim for positive cashflow because it means money is flowing into our bank account. The cashflow equation is simple but crucial.

Income – expenses = Cashflow

Income is the monthly rent our tenant pays and, on the other side of the equation, monthly expenses include our mortgage payments and property management fees. So to be more specific the calculation is:

Monthly rent – monthly expenses = monthly cashflow

If, for example, the rent is 500 and expenses are 300 then we have a positive cashflow of 200. Conversely if we have rent of 650 but monthly expenses of 750 then we suffer from a negative cashflow of minus 100.

Before buying a property the most important thing to do is research. In order to find property that yields positive cashflow we must accurately find our projected income and expenses, then we will know if the property will generate positive cashflow and this decides if we buy the property. Fortunately, in the internet age, our research can be done mostly online and with a few phone calls.

So how can we accurately calculate our income and expenses?

What exactly is my monthly income?

As stated, our monthly income is the rent paid by our tenant. When researching rent we should receive for our target property it’s important to use established property websites. In the UK two well-known sites are Zoopla and Rightmove. Simply go to the website’s rental page and insert into the search engine properties that are as similar as possible to your target property. Insert the relevant postcode and property type e.g. 2 bedroom or 3 bedroom, and find property currently being advertised to rent. Examine the photos of the advertised properties to make sure they are a similar standard to the property you plan to buy, refurbish and let. Find 3 such properties and take the lowest rent as the assumed rent. Of course we want to get higher rent but to protect ourselves while calculating the property’s cashflow let’s take the lowest number.

In the UK another method to find the base rent of an area is to use Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rents. LHA is rent money given to tenants claiming government benefits because they are unemployed or too sick/disabled to work. LHA rent is usually the lowest rent in an area and therefore can be the gauge for the base rent we can expect. Calculating cashflow based on LHA rates doesn’t mean our tenant will be unemployed (although that is one strategy) it simply means we know the guaranteed rent we can get in a certain street/area. This information is online. Simply type into google the name of the town and LHA rates. Then you will see there are 5 different rent levels given based on the number of bedrooms in a property. The rates are: shared housing rate, 1bedroom (br), 2br, 3br and 4br.

I am for example currently looking to buy a 2 br property in my investment area of Liverpool. I simply go online and find the 2br LHA rate for Liverpool is 454 and I use this figure as my monthly income in the cashflow calculation.

Liverpool Bedroom Rate	RATE PER MONTH
Shared	£250.34
1 Bedroom	£393.90
2 Bedroom	£454.52
3 Bedroom	£523.55
4 Bedroom	£673.13

A third option for finding rent in an area is to call three local lettings agents and tell them the street of your target property and number of bedrooms. Ask the standard rent for such a property in good condition and once again take the lowest rental figure as the assumed monthly rent.

Finding our projected rental income can be done in 30 minutes. Even so there are plenty of amateur investors who do not do the research or use unrealistic, sky-high rents to calculate overblown cashflow. Do not get carried away by a lettings agent who says you will get sky-high rent. Usually they do this because they want your business and you will end up with an empty property because you got too greedy demanding rent that no one wants to pay. If you do get higher rent than expected that is great, but for now stay focused and assume a lower rent in your cashflow calculation because this will let us know if the property is really worth buying.

Now we know how to accurately find our monthly income, next we need to accurately calculate the property’s monthly expenses.

What exactly are my monthly expenses?

There are 3 main monthly expenses an investor covers.

Monthly mortgage payment
Management fee,
Monthly Operating Expenses (MOE)

The most important monthly expense to pay is the mortgage. You absolutely must pay the monthly mortgage, however you pay without using your money. Who pays for it? The tenant pays your mortgage with their monthly rental payment.

For people who hate the debt of paying a mortgage you can use your own money to buy houses but you will soon run out. Even if you are wealthy, buying houses quickly leaves a large dent in the bank account. The art of property investing is the art of managing debt to sustainably make money. So our first monthly expense to pay is the mortgage and the point is someone else pays this mortgage – our tenant.

In the UK interest only mortgage rates currently stand around 2.5%.

Again property websites provide a calculator to calculate how much we must pay per month, simply insert the relevant figures (purchase price, deposit, interest rate). The mortgage market however is broad and constantly changing so I strongly recommend you use a mortgage broker who can quickly find the best deal for you based on your situation. It is a small cost to use a broker but they perform an important task finding the best mortgage deal and could save you thousands of pounds over the years and decades to come. The broker’s fee is also tax deductible.

If you want to calculate the mortgage cost yourself the formula is quite simple. There are a few key numbers you will need:

The property’s Done up Value (DUV). As explained in the last article this means the value of the property after your refurbishments
The loan to value (usually 75% in UK)
The mortgage interest rate e.g. 2.5%
And the number 12 because there are 12 months in the year (therefore 12 mortgage payments to make in a year)

The monthly mortgage payment calculation is:

DUV x 75% x mortgage interest rate /12 = monthly mortgage payment

(If you didn’t understand these terms please see the previous post).

So using our example of a 100K property from the last post, and knowing from our mortgage broker that the best mortgage rate is 2.5%, the calculation looks like this.

100K x 75% x 2.5% / 12 = 156.25

Therefore the monthly mortgage payment is 156.25 which we can round off to 156 pounds.

As we are in an historically low interest rate environment (which means monthly mortgage payments are low) amateur investors get very excited and want to go out and buy anything on the market.

Before rushing out and trying to buy everything, professionals do the exact same calculation as above but they also do it a second time with a higher mortgage interest rate of 5%.

So if we do the exact same calculation again at 5% we get a higher monthly mortgage payment:

100 x 75% x 2.5% / 12 = 312

This calculation confirms the property is worth buying.

Why do professionals do this second calculation? Because we want to stress test the mortgage. When interest rates increase (at some point they will) we want to make sure the property at least breaks even with mortgage payments and we do not fall into negative cashflow.

So in order to protect ourselves the calculation is done twice – first, work with the real life mortgage rate and then check again at 5% as a stress test.

Now some people will say “Don’t worry about stress tests, just buy the house and get some income”, but do you remember the professional’s mantra?

Money in money out, asset for free, income for life.

Income for life…….not income for 15 months until I suffer negative cashflow from rate hikes and have to sell the property at a loss.

And when this happens and you have to sell the property at a loss because the bank repossessed it, guess who will be buying the property at a bargain price? – Some irritating professional who wants income for life and has done their homework properly. I therefore want you to be protected too so please do both calculations and then you will have a much safer and stronger property portfolio which will stand the test of time.

The second monthly expense we need to consider is management fees. Professional lettings agents will provide long-term management for your property for a fee. Management fees vary between 8-12% of monthly rent – the agents I work with all charge a flat 10% of rent. For example if the rent is 500 pounds the agent’s monthly fee is 50 pounds. This fee covers finding suitable tenants, credit checking the tenant, organizing repairs, taking rent, and dealing with arrears.

Property investors use other people’s money (OPM) to buy property and they use other people’s time (OPT) for the long-term management of their portfolio. Long distance investors will definitely need an agent to manage the property, however local, amateur investors who live in their investing area sometimes want to save the management fees and manage the property themselves. Think carefully about this because if my agent is doing a good job I am happy to pay the agent’s fees, which are tax deductible. Getting a good agent frees an investor to carry on building the portfolio or doing their day job or whatever they want to do. The point is if you have a good agent pay them well, remember to deduct their costs from your taxable income and benefit from the extra free-time!

The final expense is Monthly Operating Expenses (MOE).

MOE includes the required annual gas check, annual building insurance (the only legally required insurance) and savings for wear and tear. It could also include void money and ground rent if the property is a leasehold. If you have a good property in a desirable area then some of these MOE costs should be minimal e.g. voids and wear and tear, at least for the first 5 years. MOE is generally calculated at 10% of monthly rent although some investors prefer a slightly higher figure.

I personally have a separate bank account as my MOE pot of money. The pot starts with 3000 pounds and over time empties as I pay MOE expenses, but every month I transfer 10% of the portfolio’s rent into this account to top it back up. Professionals have a system in place so savings for operating expenses are automatically taken care of.

Et Voila! Here we have the information and methods to accurately assess our cashflow.

Income – Expenses = Cashflow

Rent Mortgage

Management (10% of rent)

MOE (10% of rent)

The property feeds you

This post is all about achieving positive cashflow and another cashflow principle is that you only buy a property if you can achieve a positive cashflow of at least 100 pounds per month. Be very careful about buying a property below 100 pounds cashflow because if you have a sudden significant cost e.g. boiler breaks, storm damages the roof or damp issue, your cashflow is wiped out and you have to dip into life savings to pay for the house. Remember – you shouldn’t feed the property, the property should feed you.

Now 100 pounds per month doesn’t sound like a lot of money but considering you have a property for free and equity, you’re literally getting 100 pounds every month, for life, for free. Furthermore the cumulative effect of building a portfolio and buying 2 or 3 or 4 times, year on year, will make a fundamental financial difference to most people’s lives.

So can you get the cashflow calculations right?

Before going out and buying property I recommend you run the cashflow calcs at least 50 times on different properties. To get started have a look at the 3 example properties below and run the cashflow calcs and decide which one would you buy?

Liverpool 2br

Rent 454

Mortgage 280

Management 10% rent

MOE 10% rent

Cashflow =

Grimsby 2br

Rent 475

Mortgage =127

Management 10%

MOE 10%

Cashflow =

Hull 3Br

Rent 465

Mortgage 275

Management 10% rent

MOE 10% rent

Cashflow =

Always protect the downside

Richard Branson stands out as probably the most famous British entrepreneur ever. One of his key teachings is:

“Always protect the downside”.

As you read how professional investors operate you will notice there are multiple checks to protect the downside, for example checking the area’s base rent, buying BMV, calculating 100 pounds plus cashflow and stress testing the mortgage. You can make a lot of money from property, but oh boy, you can also lose a lot of money too. Protecting the downside is just common sense – when it is raining you open an umbrella, when you get in a car you use the seatbelt and property investing is no different. Another protection we use is checking we always have 2 exits. This means if our first strategy (buy, refurbish, rent) doesn’t work then we have a second plan. The standard two property strategies are:

Buy, Refurbish, Rent and
Buy, Refurbish, Sell.

So if we really can’t find a tenant for the property for whatever reason we need to know we can find a buyer for the property – the buyer might be a young family or first time buyer or another investor or somebody else.

If you’re strategy is Buy Refurbish Rent, then check your second exit also works i.e. you can sell the property.

Once again view reputable online property websites for sold comparables in the area. What price did similar properties sell for and was the sold house in similar condition to your property? How long were they on the market for? Have any properties sold in the area in the last 6-8 months and how much for? If you can’t find any comparables it means one of two things:

It’s difficult to sell because the area is a war zone.
Residents love the area and don’t want to leave.

It is easy to see if the area is a war zone – just visit the area and look for dilapidated houses, graffiti, loitering youths and litter on the streets. Are the cars in good condition or not? Are the registration plates new or old? A great tool is google street view. If you’re doing this research online drive the street and nearby streets using google street view and check for signs of trouble.

You will quickly figure out which type of neighbourhood it is.

If it is a war zone think long and hard if you want the hassle of being a landlord in a troubled neighbourhood. You can make positive changes to a property but will find it much, much harder to influence an entire neighbourhood.

These two connected articles have illustrated the core principle which skillful property investors use to build passive income. When we follow the same steps i.e. buy cashflowing property and take our money out of deal, the great thing is then we can go shopping again! Amateurs think they have to use their own money and therefore soon run out of funds and stop investing, but property investment is a low capital investment……….if you know how.

How to Buy Gold

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On August 10th Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio wrote a LinkedIn blog post suggesting investors should have 5-10% of their portfolio in gold due to a rise in risk in global markets. He also put his money where his mouth is as his fund took a new position in two gold ETFs. This is not a new recommendation from Dalio, whose All-Weather strategy has included a 7.5% allocation to gold for some time. As I’m writing this, gold is up 16% year to date at $1340 per ounce.

So if you wanted to follow Mr. Dalio’s advice, how would you go about it? Here are a few simple ways you can allocate to gold:

Buy physical gold – probably the most exciting way to own gold is to buy the stuff itself and take it home. Obviously it’s not advisable to have large amounts of gold sitting around in your spare room, but for smaller amounts a decent safe is probably enough security. If you live in Japan you can buy gold on the high street from Tanaka Kikinzoku. Their English page is not so detailed, but it does have up to date price information.
If you are planning on buying larger amounts you may want to use a service like Goldmoney where you can both purchase and securely store your gold for a fee.
Buy a gold ETF – if you have a brokerage or platform account that gives you access to ETFs, this is the simplest way to get exposure to gold. SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) and iShares Gold Trust (IAU) are two well known gold ETFs. There are also a number of gold funds out there that buy and store the physical metal – just make sure you are buying a gold bullion fund, rather than a gold (miners) stock fund, as they will not necessarily produce the same results.

If you are thinking of adding gold to your overall asset allocation I hope this helps. I would be happy to hear from anyone who has found other convenient ways of investing in gold or other precious metals.

Disclaimer: This should go without saying, but the information contained in this blog is not investment advice, or an incentive to invest, and should not be considered as such. This is for information only.

What is an ETF?

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Someone asked me the other day what exactly an ETF is. It’s one of those investment terms that probably everyone has heard by now and it made me aware that I have referred to Exchange Traded Funds in several posts already, assuming that people know what they are. So for the sake of clarity I thought it might be useful to provide a simple overview.

Probably the first point of reference here is to look at mutual funds. A mutual fund is a pooled investment run by a professional manager for a fee. The manager decides what assets to buy and sell in the fund and is usually benchmarked to an index in order to gauge performance. The idea is that investors are paying the manger to keep up with or beat that benchmark. Each investor owns a share of the fund, and at the end of each day the fund adds up the value of all the assets it owns and divides it by the number of shares so everyone knows the value of their share.

In 1976 Vanguard Group launched the first index fund. An index fund is still structured as a mutual fund. The difference lies in the investment strategy. Instead of trying to beat the market, an index fund simply tracks the market. Because tracking an index such as the S&P 500 does not require the skills of an active manager, the costs are lower. That first index fund, known as the Vanguard 500 (VFINX) is still around today.

An ETF is also a pooled investment. Like a mutual fund it can invest in cash, bonds, equities, commodities, or a blend of assets, and these assets are divided up into shares. The main difference from a mutual fund is that it is exchange traded – this means that it is traded just like a stock. You don’t have to wait until the end of the day to get the price of an ETF, it updates in real time. Therefore you can buy and sell it whenever the market is open. You can also utilise stock-like strategies such as stop losses, limit orders, or buying on margin. The structure makes it very low cost and easy to access through a brokerage account.

In January 1993 the American Stock Exchange released the S&P 500 Depository Receipt, the first ETF. Early ETFs were typically index trackers, but they have become more and more sophisticated and these days you can even find ETFs that short the market (in the expectation that it will go down) and use leverage to magnify returns. There are currently almost 7,000 ETF strategies available, so there is plenty of choice.

So just how widely used are ETFs these days? Well in May this year the global total assets under management in ETFs went past $4 trillion. And if you’re wondering now how much a trillion is, take this on board:

1 million seconds ago was 12 days ago.

1 billion seconds ago was 32 years ago.

1 trillion seconds ago was 32,000 years ago!

Asset Allocation for All Seasons

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Welcome back – I hope you had a great summer! It’s hard to believe it’s already almost September. The last four months of the year can be a busy time for investors. Many people have committed to targets earlier in the year, maybe in their New Year’s resolutions, for how much money they will put away or invest during the year, and suddenly the last quarter is looming. We all know that December is pretty much a write-off as you get busy preparing for Christmas and end of year holidays, so there are only really three months left to take action.

It’s been a pretty eventful year, not to mention a volatile summer. At one point in August the VIX Index, otherwise known as the fear index, surged by 62% in three days. (Bloomberg) A person with money to invest right now is looking at a constant stream of rather off-putting news: North Korea, terrorist attacks, protests in the US, Brexit, oil prices slumping again, not to mention central banks mulling major monetary policy decisions. So how on earth do you choose investments at a time like this?

Once again we need to go back to basics and build a core portfolio that can withstand the risks a fast changing world can throw at it. A lot of people already get the concept of spreading their risk around, not having all their eggs in one basket, but are perhaps unsure of exactly how to achieve this. Today we will look at some advice from an expert.

Ray Dalio is the founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund with some $150 billion in assets under management. Coincidentally, while I was drafting this post, I found this article in the Financial Times quoting the man himself on a rise in risk in the current climate. Needless to say, his opinion is highly sought after.

Tony Robbins interviewed Dalio for his book MONEY Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom and asked him how regular investors should organise their portfolios. His advice is both simple, and easily implemented:

According to Dalio there are four things that move the price of assets:

Inflation
Deflation
Higher than expected economic growth
Lower than expected economic growth

Also, there are only four economic environments, or seasons, that will affect asset prices:

Higher than expected inflation (rising prices)
Lower than expected inflation (deflation)
Higher than expected economic growth
Lower than expected economic growth

Unlike the four seasons we associate with nature, these seasons do not necessarily come in order, and it is difficult to predict how long a season will last. Each asset class will fair differently depending on the prevailing season. Therefore Dalio says we should have 25% of our risk in each of the categories. His strategy is known as All Weather, and ensures the portfolio is covered, regardless of what season comes next.

Dalio breaks down which assets will perform well in each of these seasons:

Higher than expected inflation – commodities / gold, inflation linked bonds
Lower than expected inflation – government bonds, stocks
Higher than expected economic growth – stocks, corporate bonds, commodities / gold
Lower than expected economic growth – government bonds, inflation linked bonds

Tony Robbins persuaded Dalio to simplify this into an asset allocation that individual investors can follow. It’s called the All Seasons strategy and it looks like this:

30% stocks
15% intermediate term bonds (7-10 year)
40% long term bonds (20-25 year)
7.5% gold
7.5% commodities

This portfolio could easily be constructed with a low cost portfolio of ETFs, as suggested in this article. (a year old but see the ETFs listed in the middle of the article)

Many people are surprised by the high allocation to bonds, but Dalio points out that stocks are three times more volatile than bonds, therefore the damage they can do in the wrong environment needs to be controlled. Most investors have their asset allocation set up to do well in a good market, but very badly in a bad market.

He also points out the importance of rebalancing annually so you do not get out of balance when one segment does particularly well. I would also stress, for the international investor, the importance of establishing your base currency to control currency risk over time.

So, if you are looking to add to your investments over the coming months, make sure you are considering your asset allocation carefully and set yourself up to thrive in all four seasons.

Lump Sum Investing – Offshore Platforms

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Today let’s take a look at a simple lump sum investment vehicle. These are often referred to as platforms or wrap accounts. There are a number of them available these days, each with different features, but we’re not going to try to compare one with another here, just to give an overview of how they work.

First of all, these products are for lump sum investment. If you are not sure what we mean by lump sum, please read this. Minimum investment levels will differ, but around USD 25,000 is typical.

Structure – The typical structure for these investments is a nominee account, whereby the assets are held by a nominee company set up by the platform provider. Investor assets are segregated from the provider company assets and the individual investor is the beneficial owner. Compared to investing directly in the underlying funds costs are reduced due to bulk trading and settlement is quicker.

Security – the nominee account structure ensures that if anything were to happen to the platform provider as a business, the investor assets are held separately. If one of the underlying funds falls in value or fails, then capital is of course at risk.

Jurisdiction – offshore platform accounts are typically set up in Isle of Man, Guernsey, Luxembourg or an equivalent tax efficient jurisdiction.

Tax – as the accounts are set up offshore, no tax will be deducted from the investment “at source”. Account holders are of course responsible for reporting the investment in the country they are tax resident in.

Investment options – Platform accounts can be either open architecture or menu-driven. Open architecture means you can own pretty much any publicly traded financial asset, which would include direct stocks, bonds, ETFs and mutual funds. Menu-driven platforms will have a fixed menu of mutual funds to choose from, and some of them will also have a menu of ETFs. Platform accounts are also likely to have access to a number of “managed portfolio” investments. These portfolios are managed by an investment manager and can invest in a diversified range of assets, many of which may not be on the platform menu itself. They are usually managed in a base currency, to a specified risk profile. So a USD Growth portfolio will have USD as it’s base currency and will invest in a range of cash, bonds, stocks, funds, ETFs and alternative strategies. The manager will have control over the underlying investments and will likely rebalance them on a regular basis.

Distribution – offshore platforms are typically distributed through financial advisers.

Fees – fees will vary from one platform to another. Typically the platform provider will take 0.5% upfront on money invested and 0.5% per year. The financial adviser handling the account may then add an upfront and annual fee on top of that, which may be negotiable depending on the investment amount. Mutual funds and ETFs on a platform will typically deal at NAV, which means there is no initial fee. Usually there are no redemption fees / exit penalties and all money can be withdrawn any time with reasonable notice.

Drawbacks – although you will be able to view your investment online, not all platform accounts allow online “trading”. They are not brokerage accounts and in some cases you will have to submit a signed instruction in order to buy or sell assets. The idea is that you should be discussing your investment strategy with your adviser and making long term asset allocation decisions, not trading assets day to day.

Platform accounts can be an efficient and cost effective lump sum vehicle. They also tend to offer significant diversification. This means it is possible to establish a solid core/satellite approach, whereby the majority of the investment is in a well diversified portfolio and a smaller percentage is invested in more alternative or riskier assets.

NISA – The Japan Individual Savings Account

Today let’s take a look at a Japan based investment vehicle that longer term expats may wish to utilise. The Nippon Individual Savings Account Program, or NISA, was launched in January 2014. It has since been expanded to include the Junior NISA. NISA is based on the UK Individual Savings Account. (ISA)

Eligibility – anyone over the age of 20 resident in Japan is eligible to open a NISA account.

Tax Exemption – individuals are eligible for an exemption of the 20% levy on income from capital gains and dividends from annual investments of up to ¥1.2 million made over a five year period, as long as they reside in Japan. In other words, you can contribute up to ¥1.2 million in year one and it is sheltered from tax on gains for 5 years. You can then invest up to ¥1.2 million in year two and that is also tax free for 5 years, and so on. Each annual “slice” qualifies for the 5 year tax exemption. So if you invest every year you can hold one NISA for a total of 10 years. After that you may start a new NISA.

Junior NISA – available since April 2016, Junior NISA allows parents / grandparents / guardians to make contributions on behalf of children under 20. The contribution limit for Junior NISA is ¥800,000 per year.

Investment options – NISA’s are offered by securities companies. This means you are able to invest in direct stocks, bonds, ETFs and mutual funds.

Security – as the account holder directly owns the investment assets in the account, NISA’s are very secure. Of course you are still taking investment risk and there is no protection against the value of investments falling.

Cost – it’s tricky to find information on the actual fees involved in investing in NISA, but they are relatively low. The securities company will charge a brokerage fee of up to 0.15%, usually with a minimum commission fee. ETF management fees are no more than 0.5% p.a.. Mutual funds run around 1.5% p.a. Obviously costs will increase if you employ an adviser to help you with asset allocation.

Drawbacks – one drawback is that capital losses made in a NISA cannot be used to offset against capital gains made in other accounts, but this seems fair enough on a non-taxable account. The main drawback with NISA is that if the value of your investment falls over the 5 year investment period, the price is effectively reset and any recovery then counts as a taxable capital gain.

Let me illustrate that so it’s clear: Say you invest ¥1.2 million in your NISA and leave it there for 5 years. Over the 5 years the value falls to ¥800,000. You don’t want to sell the asset and realise the loss, so you continue to hold it. However, it is now outside the 5 year tax exempt period. If the value then returns to ¥1.2 million you will be taxed on the ¥400,000 “increase” as a capital gain.

Account Opening – the account opening process is a little convoluted and you are going to need some skill / help in Japanese language to complete it. Typically the flow is something like this:

On your chosen securities company website, request the account opening documents for NISA – this will require inputting some personal information.
Account application documents will be mailed to you.
Complete account application documents and return along with a copy of your residence card and tax ID number. (My Number)
The securities company will then apply on your behalf to the tax office.
The tax office approves the application and notifies the securities company.
The securities company then notifies you that the account is open, either by mail, or via login to their website.

Some well known securities companies offering NISA are Rakuten Securities, SBI Securities and Matsui Securities. As far as I’m aware, the online interface for applying for accounts, depositing money, and buying / trading investments is all in Japanese.

This article suggests that, even for Japanese people, setting up Junior NISA is rather complicated.

Overall, NISA seems like a very cost-effective way to save and invest in Japan. However, I do feel that the major hurdle for expats is the lack of an English interface. Also for expats and Japanese alike, operating a securities account without professional advice, whether tax exempt or not, means managing your own investments. Some people will relish this level of control, while for others it can be rather daunting. Hopefully that’s where this blog will come in useful! You may want to go back and work on your financial profile and read up on the investment basics in earlier posts.

Property Investing Part Three – Money in, Money Out, Asset for Free, Income for Life

Welcome back to part three of our series on property investing with Graeme. In this installment he shows us how to use mortgages to our advantage:

Above is the number one mantra of a professional property investor, and if you want to build a successful portfolio it really helps to know how you can get a property for free and income for life.

Property is a major route to life-changing wealth and the main reason is because you can use other people’s money to make money. Even if you use your own money, an important point is how you buy a property and get your money back whilst making a rental profit each month. In many countries, (UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc.) not only can you pull your money out of a property by remortgaging and make a monthly rental income, you can also increase the property’s equity over time.

Money Out with a Mortgage

The principle of money in money out works because of mortgages. Mortgages are available in all countries, however the calculation to find money in money out deals may vary slightly from one country to another. For example, in the UK we focus on getting our money spent on a property back in 6 months because this is the legal amount of time it takes to get a remortgage after purchase. In other countries this time frame may be slightly different, however the basic principle of using mortgages (the bank’s money) to return your personally invested money is the same around the world.

To use the U.K. example, whenever a serious investor analyses a property he or she asks the question:

What is this property worth, refurbished to a good standard in 6 months time?

We want to refurbish properties to a good standard because the mortgage company will increase the loan amount and six months after purchase we can get all our invested money out of the property. Furthermore we want to refurbish a property to a good standard because we want to be good landlords – property is a people business and a good property attracts good tenants who stay longer and pay full rent on time. Initially it costs more to refurbish a property to a good standard but in the long run this is the smart business thing to do.

So how do we know what is a money in money out deal? This is best explained with an example:

Money In Money Out Example

Lets say we find a property on the market and comparables suggest it is worth 100K in good condition. To keep things simple and based on standard UK mortgage lending we will assume a loan of 75% to the value of the property.

If we want to get all our money back we do a simple calculation:

100K x 75% = 75K (loan amount)

– refurbs e.g. 5K

– other costs 2K (legal fees, survey)

= 68K

So we know our maximum offer to the seller is 68 K and we can invest a total of 75K if we want to get all our money back on the remortgage.

With this example let’s assume we have the 75K in savings and our offer of 68K is accepted. We buy the property for 68K, pay the survey and legal fees and refurbish the property with 5K. Then 6 months later, when the property is already rented, we take a remortgage and the mortgage company’s surveyor looks for comparables in the area and finds the fair market value is 100K, and because most UK mortgage companies give 75% of a property’s value, they give us 75K and hey presto we now have the 75K spent back in our bank account.

Comparing Apples with Apples

“How do we find good comparables?” you may ask. “How do we know the true value of a property?”

Well, we have to think like a surveyor because surveyors are the people who actually put the values on properties.

A surveyor looks at similar properties that have sold in the same area recently. In the U.K. we use websites such as nethouseprices.com, mouseprice.com or ourproperty.co.uk as these websites use Land Registry data. (the organization which stores official property title deeds)

Specifically we want to know if anything has sold within the last 6 months that is very similar to our property, in particular comparables should have the same number of bedrooms. Ideally these comparables are in the same street. If not the same street then within ¼ of a mile, and if not then expand your search out further which is easy to do when you input your information into a property website’s search engine.

Look for properties in a high price range and in good condition.

If the comparables are a bit tired or fully distressed call 3 estate agents and ask for an honest appraisal and take the average of the 3 predictions. Another method is to call a local surveyor and ask “What will this property value at in the current market, once refurbished?”

To be extra safe you can use all the techniques together and take the average.

The Power of Persistence

Now, one mistake amateur investors make is believing the seller’s asking price. Our research tells us the value of our example property is 100k after refurbishment, however the asking price might be 110k or 130K or 90K or whatever the seller thinks it is worth. The only thing you need to remember is: The asking price is irrelevant!

Of course you may say, “This is all very interesting but no seller will accept such a low offer” and you would be right that it is unusual. However it is possible, and successful investors actively search for such below market value (BMV) deals.

Property investing courses say that 1 in 40 such BMV offers are accepted. The truth is it depends on the market. It might be 1 in 60 BMV offers in a buoyant market, but when sellers are desperate you might only have to make 20 such offers. The point is there are motivated sellers in every market and professional investors have a variety of ways of finding them.

As you can see you will have to experience a lot of rejections in order to get a real BMV deal. You will have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince. Amateurs hate rejection but it is part of the game, and if you don’t embrace rejection it may crush you to the point of giving up. However, just because someone says “No” it does not mean they won’t say “Yes” at a later date. If a seller rejects your offer simply record the offer in your property database and move onto the next property. Then 3 weeks later re-offer. You will probably offer 3 or 4 times on the same property and that is fine. Your database is a simple chart that shows property address, offer, date of offer, refurb estimate and rent per month. Your database is a simple, powerful tool that will grow and, given time, help you find good BMV deals. Remember to put all your offers into the database because as my mentor likes to say, “The money is in the database”.

The number one mantra of a professional property investor is:

Money in, money out, asset for free, income for life.

In the next article we will examine the final piece of the mantra i.e. how to get rental income for life, even while paying a mortgage on the property. For now however, let’s summarize this piece which has focused on getting your money out of a property and gaining an asset for free.

Summary

Research and make many BMV offers
Buy BMV
Refurbish
Roll onto long-term finance with a bank.

The Offshore Regular Savings Plan

So here is a first look at a well known investment product. I’m going to start here as these plans have been around for a long time, and have been known to generate lively discussion. They are in the toolbox of almost every expat financial adviser / salesperson worldwide and millions of dollars, pounds and euros flow into them every year. They are also somewhat controversial products as they have sometimes been abused by unscrupulous salespeople, selling them to (in some cases lazy) customers, who don’t read the terms and conditions.

Regular savings plans are offered by a number of life companies, with the most common being RL 360, (Royal London), Friends Provident International, Old Mutual International, Generali Worldwide and Zurich International Life.

Structure

The typical structure for this product is an offshore unit linked insurance policy. Offshore means it is domiciled in a tax free jurisdiction such as the Isle of Man or Guernsey. Unit linked means that contributions are used to buy units in investment funds. A unit linked plan acts like a savings vehicle, but it also has the benefits of an insurance contract. The insurance part comes from the 101% (of policy value) death benefit attached to the policy. Although many of these contracts are now issued on a capital redemption basis, whereby there are no lives assured and the contract can be passed on to future generations. Capital redemption products have a slightly confusing 99 year maximum term, which facilitates the passing on of the investment to future generations – you do not have to keep it in force for 99 years though!

Typically these contracts are set up with a fixed savings term, usually aligned with the investors savings goal, such as their retirement age. If the policy is surrendered before this savings term is reached, early surrender penalties apply.

Security

The Isle of Man and Guernsey regulators each operate a policyholder protection scheme. In Guernsey insurers are required to hold assets representing at least 90% of liabilities in trust with an independent trustee. The Isle of Man Policyholder Protection Scheme levies all insurance companies operating on the island to pay into a Policyholders Compensation Fund, which will pay out a sum equal to 90% of the liability if an insurer is unable to meet it’s liabilities.

Note: What we are talking about here is protection if the insurance company itself “goes under”. In practice this is highly unlikely. If one of these companies started to get into trouble, it would most likely be swiftly bought out by one of it’s competitors and policyholders would be unaffected. Also, policyholder protection does not protect from losses in the underlying funds. If the fund goes down in value, so does your policy. If the fund itself fails, then your capital is at risk.

Uses

Regular savings plans are typically used for saving for retirement or for children’s future education costs. Moreover they are popular with people who feel they need to get started saving and perhaps need some discipline to do so. Although it is getting much easier these days, it used to be quite difficult for expats to find an investment vehicle where you could invest a small amount of money each month and still be able to diversify into a range of asset classes. High investment minimums or high transfer costs would prevent the smaller saver from getting started. The ability to make automatic monthly collections from the customer’s credit card made all this easy, the money would simply be deducted every month and the investor didn’t have to go to the bank and send it. When you consider that in Japan, for example, making a $300 overseas bank transfer can cost up to $40, not to mention the time spent in the bank actually getting it done, credit card collection made these products easily accessible.

Fees and charges

The fees on these policies are relatively high. And with the advent of low cost brokerage accounts and ETFs it is getting harder to justify the cost of one of these vehicles. A typical fee structure looks something like this:

Initial unit charge: 1.5% per quarter, charged on contributions made in the first 18 months for the life of the policy.

Administration charge: 1.5% per year applied across both initial and accumulation units

Policy fee: A fixed fee, usually around $8 per month

These are the basic fees applied to the policy itself. The underlying investment funds also have their own management fee, which is typically 1.5% per year. There are generally no initial fees for accessing the funds.

These products are not sold directly by the life companies. They are distributed via financial advisers. The initial unit charges are largely used to pay commission to the adviser.

Usually these policies offer some kind of extra allocation as an incentive to get started, or a loyalty bonus to incentivise saving for the long term.

Investment Options

The investment choice for these products is menu-driven. This means there is a fixed range of funds to choose from. These are mostly managed funds (mutual funds) and cover the full range of asset classes. You cannot access ETFs in these plans at present, although there are an increasing number of index tracker funds available. Switching between funds is free of charge.

Currency

Typically these plans are available in GBP, Euro and USD. Some accept contributions in JPY. In most cases, once you have selected the contribution currency, it cannot be changed. This means you need to think carefully about your base currency before getting started. Funds are available in multiple currencies, which is one way you can mitigate currency risk if need be.

Tax

As these policies are domiciled in “tax havens”, they are not subject to income or capital gains tax in those jurisdictions. This means they will grow without any tax being deducted at source. It does not necessarily mean that they are tax free for policyholders, as that will depend on their nationality, where they reside, and their own personal tax situation. Offshore life products were originally designed for British expats, and carry several potential benefits for them, even if they return to the UK with the policy. These include a 5% withdrawal allowance, time apportionment relief, top slicing relief, and clustering and segmentation. (I’m not going to get into the details here as this post will already be long enough as it is)

One of the benefits of these international schemes is that they are “portable”. It’s easy to move from one country to another without affecting the investment itself, although it’s important to note that a policyholder’s tax situation may change when they move.

Do’s and Don’ts

Despite the high fees, these products can still be an effective long term savings vehicle if used properly. The most important thing here is to understand how the contract works and avoid the pitfalls.

There are two types of units associated with these policies: initial units and accumulation units.

Initial units are units purchased during the Initial Allocation Period (IAP), which is typically 18 months, but can vary. These units are charged at a higher rate and must stay invested until the end of the selected savings term. If these units are withdrawn early, an early surrender penalty will apply. That penalty starts off large and gets smaller the closer you get to the maturity date.

Accumulation units are those purchased after the IAP. They are charged at a lower rate and can be withdrawn without penalty if necessary.

Once you have completed the initial unit allocation period, you have the option to reduce contributions, or take a break from contributions for a while.

DON’T mistake one of these products for an 18 month savings plan – if someone explains it to you as such, run a mile.

DON’T start with a higher premium level than you plan to contribute for the whole of your chosen term. One of the worst ways to use a plan like this is to start off contributing say $4,000 per month, and then reduce it to $300 per month after the IAP. You just end up paying high initial fees on the original amount in order to get a $300 per month savings plan.

DO start with an initial contribution amount that you are comfortable making for the whole investment term. This is the most efficient way to use these plans. The flexibility to take a break from paying premiums is there but it’s far better not to use it. Increasing contributions generates a new IAP on the increased amount and new initial charges, but you are not penalised for it. Reducing / stopping premiums effectively comes at a price.

DO read the product literature, especially the parts about fees and charges, the IAP, and maturity dates. Take responsibility for understanding the investment before you get started.

That said, if you are considering investing in one of these schemes, you are likely talking to a financial adviser. This is a long term investment and the adviser is well paid for it, so make sure you are talking to someone you think you can work with for the long term. How long have they been around already? Are they likely to stick around? Are they qualified? Do they have a plan for how to manage one of these policies through the three stages of capital accumulation, diversification, and pre-retirement? (See here)

NOTE: If you have one of these plans already, and you didn’t really understand it when you started, your “adviser” is no longer around, and you are not happy, consider your options carefully. I have seen blanket online advice that you should quit immediately and take the hit, or withdraw as much as you can to reinvest in something cheaper. These things should be considered on a case by case basis, depending on what your maturity date is, how much you have contributed so far, and how much you are able to contribute going forward. You should also be considering what funds you hold, how they’ve performed, and whether now is a good time to be selling them or not. Find an adviser you can trust before making any hasty decisions.

Summary

It’s very easy to write these plans off and say “you should just invest in a portfolio of ETFs and only pay 0.5% per year in fees”. While I certainly don’t disagree with that strategy, some people simply do not find it that easy to implement by themselves. If used for reasonable investment amounts as a long term savings vehicle these products can be simple and effective. I have seen them make decent returns over the long run when used properly. However, they are certainly not for everybody and should only be implemented after careful consideration.

Investment vehicles / products and cleaning toilets for wifi

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Over the coming weeks we are going to take a look at the pros and cons of various investment vehicles. Before doing so, let’s just clarify what we mean by this. When talking about an investment vehicle or an investment product, what we’re really talking about is a box – a box for holding assets. These assets could be cash, bonds, stocks, funds, ETF’s etc. The box may be structured as a directly owned account, a nominee account, or even an insurance product. The main point here is to separate the box from the actual investment strategy – i.e. what assets you hold inside the box and how you manage them over time.

I often hear people say “I’ve got a …….. product / account and it’s not performing well.” This requires some clarification as it’s unclear if it’s the account itself that is not performing well, or the investments inside it. You can have a really great vehicle that is secure, tax efficient, and reasonably costed, but if your asset allocation is poor and the investments are not performing you will not be happy with the result. Equally, you could have picked great investments that have performed very well and suffer because the vehicle you are using is inefficient, not secure, or the fees are excessive. For some of you this will be obvious, but many people fail to distinguish between the investment vehicle and the investments themselves.

Another thing people often fail to do is read the instructions on the box! It’s amazing how many people own investment products without having any idea of how they work, what restrictions there are, what fees they are paying or how they will be taxed. In many cases they have bought the product through an adviser or salesperson, based on their presentation, and not actually read the terms and conditions themselves. While we are on the subject of reading the small print, I recently came across this rather amusing article about a public wifi company’s campaign / publicity stunt, whereby thousands of people agreed to clean toilets for wifi because they didn’t read the terms.

Now I’m as guilty as anyone of not reading the terms I agree to in order to get access to public wifi, or download songs from iTunes for that matter, but when it comes to investing money we should all take responsibility for understanding what we are getting into. While I truly feel for people who get duped, or simply get unlucky, investors need to do their own due diligence before investing their money.